Is every thing chaos and likelihood, or is there order, concord, and share in human existence, nature, and the best artwork? Can one discover a normal aesthetic that corresponds to a common order? if that is so, what value can it have for the scientist, artist, or layman? what's the "true" importance of the triangle, rectangle, spiral, and different geometric shapes? those are yet the various questions that Professor Matila Ghyka bargains with during this interesting e-book. the writer believes that there are things like "The arithmetic of existence" and "The arithmetic of Art," and that the 2 coincide. utilizing uncomplicated mathematical formulation, so much as simple as Pythagoras' theorem and requiring just a very constrained wisdom of arithmetic, Professor Ghyka indicates the interesting relationships among geometry, aesthetics, nature, and the human body.
Beginning with principles from Plato, Pythagoras, Archimedes, Ockham, Kepler, and others, the writer explores the outlines of an summary technology of area, which incorporates a concept of proportions, an exam of "the golden section," a examine of standard and semi-regular polyhedral, and the interlinking of those a number of shapes and varieties. He then strains the transmission of this spatial technology throughout the Pythagorean culture and neo-Pythagorism, Greek, and Gothic canons of percentage, the Kabbala, Masonic traditions and emblems, and sleek purposes in structure, portray, and ornamental artwork. after we pass judgement on a piece of paintings, in keeping with his formula, we're making it comply with a development whose define is laid down in basic geometrical figures; and it's the research of those figures either in paintings and nature that kinds the center of Professor Ghyka's booklet. He additionally indicates this geometry at paintings in residing organisms. The considerable illustrations and figures provide concrete examples of the author's research: the nice Pyramid and tomb of Rameses IV, the Parthenon, Renaissance work and structure, the paintings of Seurat, Le Corbusier, and plant life, shells, marine lifestyles, the human face, and lots more and plenty more.
For the thinker, scientist, archaeologist, paintings historian, biologist, poet, and artist in addition to the overall reader who desires to comprehend extra in regards to the attention-grabbing houses of numbers and geometry, and their courting to paintings and lifestyles, it is a thought-provoking book.